Ouroboros
by Drenched.in.Sunlight
Summary: Akira Tanaka mysteriously vanishes in the moments after a car accident. So when his sister, Kaori, recieves a letter that raises even more questions than it answers, she sets out for the mountainous village of Sotoba. There, she will uncover the secrets behind her brother's disappearance and the connections it has to the death of her best friend. AU. Silent Hill-based.


_First and foremost, this is technically a crossover story between **Shiki **and **Silent Hill**. Though it errs on the Shiki side, mostly just being inspired by Silent Hill. So for now I am posting it in the regular old Shiki section, both for simplicity's and publicity's sake. There is a fair chance I will eventually relocate it to the crossover section, especially if FF gets upset. So, if ever this fic randomly vanishes, you'll know where it went._

_This fic's conception was kind of Frankensteinian in nature. I noticed a few vague similarities between the cast of Silent Hill and Shiki...and they're both part of the horror genre...and I like crossovers...so why not? But the thing is that Shiki has a significantly larger cast than your average Silent Hill game and while I was originally going to use the first game as a basis for the story, I realized this would mean writing out a solid chunk of the Shiki characters. Including my three favorites. So this fic has since morphed from "Silent Hill Shiki Edition," to "Silent Hill 1 meets Silent Hill 2 Shiki Edition." God help me._

_Naturally, this means that characterization is going to be a little spotty. As I am technically using the Shiki characters, I will try my best to keep them closer to that character. However, I am casting them in different roles with different back stories, so I can't promise that they will stay true to the source material 100% of the time. Not to mention the cultural differences that are sure to crop up; considering the story is set in Japan using Japanese characters, though based on a story set in the West (and re-imagined by little ol' Western me over here.) I'd be grateful if you could read it with a grain of salt. That in mind, I am aging up most of the teenage cast (with one notable exception) by roughly four years._

_And, on a completely unrelated note, I have no beta reader. So I apologize in advance for grammatical or spelling errors that will inevitably appear._

_Other than that kick back and enjoy the first chapter._

* * *

Maybe if she ignored it, the knocking would go away. It was a pattern; there would always be three soft knocks all in rapid succession, followed by a long pause before they would inevitably repeat themselves. Every once and a while, the knocks were punctuated by her own name getting called. "Kaori? Kaori?"

Kaori put her head down on the table, trying to block the noise from reaching her ears by folding her arms protectively atop her.

It didn't make any sense. Not now and not at the time. When Kaori closed her eyes, she could see the whole day and it would play out before her like a movie doomed to repeat forever. Never in her life could she remember anything so clearly and she only wished that, of all the things that could have stuck with her about her brother, it could have been a happy memory. But, even the events that took place the morning of the incident had been colored by what was bound to happen that evening, and thus were forever rendered 'unhappy.'

It had been a Sunday-one of the rare ones when Kaori hadn't been slated to work-and while she had been looking forward to using the day as a means of relaxation she was not above a change in plans when it came to her brother. She had been living in Yamairi for nearly two months at that point and, while it wasn't an especially far distance from Toshobiki, it certainly felt like it to a girl who had lived her entire life in a small town within close proximity to her family. The change was jarring, particularly in regards to her now seventeen year old brother Akira, whom she had grown up rather close to.

He called her that day. He was going through one of those sporty stages in his life and, in no uncertain terms, declared that there was a sporting goods store in her town that sold soccer balls "literally worth their weight in gold."

"If you pick me up one and bring it over, I swear I'll buy you a meal. Anywhere you want to go. Deal?"

Deal.

Kaori had done just that. When she arrived, Akira had been prepared to spend the rest of the day...kicking, or whatever it was he had been planning to do without any other teammates...this 'special' soccer ball, but as Kaori was already in the neighborhood and hardly got time to spend with her brother as is, she cashed in on her meal ticket then and there. "Alright," Akira sighed, "But we have to go early. I want to come back and practice before it gets too dark."

Six thirty may have been cutting it close, but that's the time they ended up heading home. The sun was in a steady decline, but Kaori supposed that was the price you paid when your restaurant of choice was at least a twenty minute's drive from home. Not that they had much of a choice; the Tanaka sibling's small home town had only two eateries to it's name-neither of which were particularly good. In fact, both were quite abysmal; or at least, that was what Kaori found herself continually claiming whenever Akira gave her a hard time for the late hour.

"You know that last time we ate there you got sick," she pointed out earnestly.

Akira smiled lopsidedly, "Not when we were kids. We went there all the time. None of us got sick."

"Do you ever miss that?"

"Miss what?"

"You know...when we were kids? Everything was so much...easier." Truth be told, Kaori had made it to age nineteen without ever truly feeling like an adult. It was only a few months ago, three or so, when she'd finally been forced to part with her childhood. There had been a terrible tragedy that had rocked everything Kaori had ever considered 'normal' in her world. And, while moving away from her hometown and the location of said tragedy had certainly been therapeutic, she really was grateful for her family, for her mother, for Akira, because they were always there for her.

"Is this about..." Akira trailed off, but he'd still managed to hit the nail on the head.

"Yeah," Kaori answered, "It's funny, how things can just change like that."

Akira looked like he was ready to say something in response. His mouth opened slightly, but then something caught his eye and caused him to jerk his head to face the windshield. "Kaori!"

Kaori had only looked away for a second so to meet the eye of her brother, but his exclamation startled her into turning forward. It was like in slow motion. There was a person on the road-someone small. A child? Yes, it had to be a child, with long dark hair and a dress and she just turned and looked at the car with this expression that...

Kaori panicked. She cranked the wheel, but they were on an mountain pass and there wasn't exactly a lot of room to go anywhere. There was the face of a mountain to their one side. And to the other there was a drop off that disappeared into a thick of trees, obscuring exactly how big of a fall it was.

It didn't matter, though. Kaori had no control over anything that happened after that fateful twist of the steering wheel. The car careened, swooped towards the mountain side, before suddenly shooting the other way. The guard rail didn't even slow the car as it simply mowed through it and then down down down it went.

Kaori remembered the car crash well-or, as well as she could considering she had passed out upon impact. Everything was black for what seemed like forever. It came back slowly, in blurry shapes a muddled senses. If you asked her, she could point to the exact location on her head where she had felt the splitting headache the moment she regained consciousness. But while she could sit and rattle off the nuances-where they'd been heading, the song that had been playing on the radio-of the incident, no amount of words could describe the horror she'd felt when she turned to the passenger seat to ask her brother if he was alright, only to find it vacant.

Don't panic, she had told herself, even though she could feel the fear quickly taking hold of her. She was still groggy and there was any number of rational explanations that could have explained his absence. Kaori craned her neck over to the passenger seat, examining every inch of space between it and the floor where Akira could have possibly wedged himself. She did the same thing with the back seat, peering down into the crevices in search of her brother's huddled form. But she didn't so much as catch a glimpse of his auburn haired head peeking out from behind the black vinyl. Save for herself, the car was empty.

"How long was I out?" Kaori asked herself. If she had been incapacitated for a significant amount of time, it was possible that her brother had gotten out of the car and was trying to find help. She pressed her forehead to the driver's side window, trying to make out her surroundings even as they were obscured by the shadows of trees. The car had rolled down the steep embankment and was surrounded by thick vegetation in just about every direction. The only plausible place for Akira to have gone was to have crawled back up to the road-because there, he would at least have a chance of flagging down passing cars. If it came down to it, Kaori didn't think that her brother would have been foolish enough to wander into the woods.

Okay. She would just follow him up. She'd find him standing there, waving wildly, and looking incredibly relieved when he found his sister to be up and about. She smiled weakly at the thought. He'd probably be a little disappointed their chances of making it home before dark were fast dwindling. And then he'd tease her about it; how she was a poor driver and he couldn't wait until he turned eighteen so he could get his license, then he could be the one driving _her _. That would be so like Akira. He was always forgetting that he was the _younger _and it was Kaori who was the big sister.

Her wistfulness, however, was short lived when Kaori's efforts to open the car door were halted by a screaming pain in her left arm. She gave it a once over, but when she found no external damage she resigned that something must be either sprained or broken. It wasn't a good sign, but it reminded her that she _had _been in a car accident and therefore couldn't just assume that she was in perfect condition. She extended her right arm, wincing as she prepared for a similar pain, but to her pleasant surprise, that limb seemed to be in working order.

Careful to use her right hand, Kaori reached over and pushed her way out of the car. She tentatively stretched her legs and set them on the ground. They were fine to put weight on,even if they were a little sore from being jarred.

Once out, Kaori couldn't help herself from circling around the vehicle. She had just about resigned herself to the fact that Akira had already left, but she just wanted to be certain. The car was pretty well wrecked, featuring a deep V shape that had been carved into the hood where the vehicle's nose had slammed into a tree. But Kaori was so focused on searching for clues of her brother-scouring the surrounding terrain for the bright orange of the shirt she recalled him to be wearing-that she paid no mind to the expenses that were sure to be required to fix the damage. However, nothing she found suggested that her brother had remained close by and so Kaori had no reason to, either. She approached the mountainous hillside.

The climb was a little more strenuous than she had been expecting-and it would have been nice to rely on both hands, as opposed to just her right one, to seek out leverage. Vaguely, she recalled the feeling of her heart leaping into her throat after the initial impact with the guard railing, and now Kaori could clearly see why. This incline was sharp enough to rival the downward plunge of a roller coaster.

Kaori was persistent though and before she had even climbed high enough to see the road way she began screaming her brother's name. "Akira! Akira!" She hoped that her voice would carry, provided her brother was close by enough. And she _did _fact hear something from up above that sounded quite like a person carrying on a steady conversation. This only inspired her to call out more wildly. "Akira!"

As she did so, the root Kaori had latched onto with her right hand ripped free of the soil. She reached out wildly with her left, gritting her teeth at the pain that exploded when it clung to the rim of an exposed stone. It wasn't a great anchor, as it didn't offer much in the way of grip, and Kaori could feel it slipping from her grasp.

"Hello?" a voice yelled back to her. It was decidedly feminine and certainly not that of her brother's, but Kaori wasn't in a position to be picky.

"Help!" Kaori cried, "I'm down here!"

Instantly, a woman's face appeared from atop the ledge. A cellphone was pressed to her ear, pinched between her shoulder and head so that her hands were free to reach down to Kaori. "There's a girl crawling up the hill. I think she came out of the car," the woman murmured into the receiver. She grabbed both of Kaori's hands with her own, causing the teen to flinch, but ultimately dig her heels into the earth and use the new-found support to finally crawl up. The minute Kaori felt solid ground beneath the soles of her shoes, she instantly collapsed, bracing herself just in time to prevent fully face-planting on the pavement.

The woman followed her, kneeling down to look Kaori in the eye while still preoccupied with her phone conversation, "Umm, I don't know. I'll ask her," the woman tilted her face forward to ensure that her next words were directed to Kaori rather than whoever she had thus far been speaking with, "Are you injured?"

"Just a little banged up," Kaori answered, then immediately began looking around. There was a small green Sudan parked nearby, assumedly belonging to the woman whom had just helped Kaori, but other than that the roadside was empty. "My brother! Have you seen my brother?"

The woman made a gesture to indicate that she would speak with her in a moment, then hastily excused herself from her other conversation with a, "Please hurry," before snapping her flip phone shut.

"That was the police," she explained, "They're going to send an ambulance. It should be here within ten minutes."

For her part, Kaori was beginning to panic all over again. Akira did not appear to be around...and he hadn't been in the car, either. She found herself entertaining the horrific idea that the accident had someone generated enough force to propel him out of the vehicle, send him flying through the windshield and now he was laying in a broken heap at the bottom of some tree...

No. That couldn't be. There was no broken glass. If something like that would have happened, there would have been evidence. But what if? What if...?

"I have to find my brother!" Kaori pleaded desperately, trying to push herself back up onto her feet. She would go back down there. He would be there. He had to be somewhere-he was in the car but then she'd passed out and sometime between then and now he'd gotten out of the car but he wouldn't go far, he couldn't-

"No, sweetie, I think it's better if you stay up here," the woman tried to ease Kaori back down, which was an unnervingly simple task considering Kaori's legs were now deciding to give out on her, "Is your brother still in the car? The police will get him out."

"You don't understand," Kaori shook her head vigorously and struggled against the soothing pressure the woman was applying to her back, fighting to stand. This woman probably didn't have any siblings, so she didn't understand what it was like to be a big sister. Akira wouldn't have been in the car, on this road, if it hadn't been for her protests. It was her fault he was here. And it was her fault he was lost or injured or maybe both, because she was driving and it was her that swerved off the road. "I don't know where he is!" she choked on her own words and the tears came out of nowhere. She didn't sob, she was too numb, but they fell all of the same and created splotches on the roadside.

Where was he? Kaori hated not knowing. It was awful and it was too familiar. She remembered a few months ago. Getting a phone call. Her mother. "Kaori, have you heard from-" And then there were search parties. Kaori knew what it was like to lose someone. Hoping all the while that they would be found, but then they were, and it was almost worse that way because at least before there was hope. At least Kaori had the option to pretend. What was she going to do if she lost her little brother like she'd lost her best friend?

"Honey, calm down," the woman scooted back to provide breathing room for Kaori, who had given up her efforts to stand as the despair set in and had all but curled in on herself on the asphalt, "Your brother couldn't have gotten far in two minutes."

The words hit Kaori like a slap to the face. Her head snapped up, the tears still streaking down her face, but her eyes intense and penetrating. "What?"

"If he was in the-"

"How long...how long were we down there?" Kaori didn't know who she meant that question for; herself, the woman, or some other force entirely. But she'd said it loud enough to interrupt the woman's statement and, apparently, warrant herself a response.

"I was driving behind you," the woman answered slowly, whipping her cell phone back out and clicking away at it, "When I saw you swerve off the road, I called the police. That was at exactly 6:47. See?" she held up the phone, currently set to display a history of previous calls and the exact times which they were made, "And it's just 6:50 now."

Three minutes. If Kaori had been out for ten minutes, twenty minutes, thirty, then it would have made sense. Akira could have gotten out of the car. He could have climbed the hill and found no traffic to signal for help. He could have followed the road on foot, looking for someone to help his unconscious sister. He could have been long gone before the woman had even showed up, explaining her failure to see him. But it hadn't been long enough for any of that to happen. Akira hadn't climbed the hill. He hadn't set off down the road. All that Kaori knew was that, four minutes ago, she and her younger brother had been sitting side by side in a vehicle and now, he was nowhere to be found.

There was a part of Kaori that, as she had been loaded into the ambulance, hoped she was being irrational. That Akira would be found hiding in the bushes or on the side of the road, and show up in the hospital room with a sheepish smile.

_"Sorry, sis, I didn't mean to worry you."_

As the minutes turned into hours and all of the sudden it was ten at night and she was being released from the hospital with a sling but no Akira, she started to become sick with worry.

The police had talked to her and, to their credit, had remained admirably level headed as the distraught young woman explained the situation and the urgent need to find her little brother. But, as the explained kindly to her, there appeared to be no trace of him. Not anywhere. "Are you sure he was with you? Maybe you just hallucinated. Did you hit your head?" they asked her when she pressed the matter.

"No!" Kaori answered, then thought back to her reeling headache and realized she had, in fact, hit her head. Was Akira with her at all? Had she just imagined it? Maybe he was safe, after all, back at home.

Her mother came to pick her up from the hospital and quickly crushed that notion. She had to be discharged to someone, since she was in no shape to be transporting herself and that aside, had totaled her car. And while her mother was relieved to find Kaori no worse for wear, she was quick to jump on the police with questions pertaining to her son's whereabouts.

"Where is Akira?" Kaori's mother asked fervently, over and over, and the police were at a loss.

"We were hoping he might be at home with you."

"Of course not! Didn't Kaori tell you that? She picked him up this afternoon. I haven't seen him since...and then..."

Nobody knew where he was. They couldn't even find a clue; it was as if Akira had simply stopped existing when his sister's car had rolled into the driveway that morning.

Akira was missing.

Maybe if she ignored it, the knocking would go away.

Kaori felt small in the weeks that followed. She felt distrusting of everything and everyone-but mostly just the world in general. It took her best friend. It took her brother. What would it try to take away, next? She felt it safer to stay inside-only leaving to go to work-and then returning to hide within her own small existence. It worked well, until someone would come and knock persistently upon her door, reminding her that there were still presences out there hell bent on getting in.

It was the landlady. "Kaori?" she kept calling softly, "Please let me in, dear." The landlady was old and sweet and Kaori had always liked her. But she wasn't making an exception for anybody. She wouldn't have even opened the door if it had been a police officer, because at this point they would only show up bearing bad news. If Akira had been found, alive and well, it would be him to come knock on the door.

_"Sis, it's me! I'm okay! You'll never believe what happened!" _

Instead of her seventeen year old brother's cheerful laugh, she heard only a defeated sigh from the other side. "Kaori," the landlady called, "I see that you're not going to open the door. There was a letter dropped off for you, so I'm just going to hang onto it until I can give it to you."

The landlady probably wasn't expecting an answer-she'd been at this for ten minutes and so far, regardless of what she said, had received none-but this particular development caught Kaori's attention.

Kaori had been sitting at the table, on the cushion closest to the window, though had pulled the blinds shut. Now, she got up and crossed the floor. And, taking a deep breath, she opened the door.

"Oh!" the landlady looked up in surprise. In retrospect, she could have been lying in order to tempt Kaori to open the door. But she was, in fact, clutching an envelope between her hands. The landlady immediately held it out, presenting it to her tenant.

"I think someone brought it by while I was out. It was just sitting on the front desk without an address...so I don't think it went through the mail." The old woman beamed as Kaori took it. She also did not ask whether Kaori was feeling alright, or if she had heard anything regarding Akira, as seemed to be the popular topics of conversation among anyone else who wanted to talk to Kaori. Instead, the woman seemed plenty pleased just seeing that Kaori was, in fact, alive, and proceeded to hobble away without even attempting any small talk.

"Have a good day, dear," she called over her shoulder.

"T-thanks," Kaori called back.

She puzzled over the envelope as she went back inside. There was something written on the white paper, but it was inscribed using what appeared to be pink ink and therefore, the near darkness inside her apartment was doing her no favors in deciphering it. Without much choice, Kaori yanked opened the blinds. The light made all the difference.

The only thing written on the envelope was her name-and not even her full name. Just her first name, in fluorescent pink script that was big and swirly. It reminded Kaori of what her own handwriting looked like back when she was in high school-overly feminine. Back then, she would write letters to her friends not too different from the one she was holding and they would write them in return. They had all thought the idea was cute at the time. It could, in theory, be from one of them. Not that Kaori kept in contact with any high school friends-many of whom she had last spoken to at her best friend's funer...

Then again, her brother was missing, and that was turning out to act as a beacon for drawing acquaintances, work mates, and anybody who so much as knew her name to come crawling out of the wormwood and offer their condolences. It was probably a pity note. In which case, there were better, more formal ways in which the thing could have been addressed, but Kaori couldn't quite bring herself to care.

She gleaned the tabletop for anything that might act as a good letter-opening appliance but, when she found nothing, ended up tearing the envelope with her finger. There was a singular piece of paper inside, a small one with a pink tint that still sported the fray marks from having been ripped straight out of a notebook. _Was _written by a teenager?

Extracting the paper, Kaori examined the simple message.

She almost dropped it.

"Dear Kaori," it read, "Your little brother is here. We are waiting in Sotoba."

There appeared to be nothing else written, until Kaori flipped the piece of paper over. There, she found the word "Love," written as if in closing, followed by the signature of the sender. The name on the letter read...Megumi...Kaori's best friend's name.

But that was ridiculous. A dead person couldn't write a letter.


End file.
